Ex-Googler Patrick Keane Is Playing A Big Role In New York Startups

After his four year stint at Google, Keane became CMO of CBS Interactive. He was CEO of Associated
Content when it was acquired by Yahoo! for $100 million. Now he's giving back
to the New York tech scene. He's been mentoring startups in
TechStars, joining their boards, and
giving them capital.

Most recently, Keane joined OnSwipe as an independent board
member. AOL executive Ran Harnevo, who sold 5Min for $65 million,
joined too.

We called him up to get his take on the New York startup scene
and OnSwipe.

"I've worked inside billion-dollar publishing companies and
billion-dollar tech companies. The reality of the web is, unless
you're a consumer retail or commerce company, you're going to
generate revenue through advertising," says Keane. Those
advertising and content creating companies are the startups he
looks to invest in.

Keane says he was first introduced to OnSwipe through Andy Weissman when he was at Betaworks. He wanted to invest in the "Series
Awesome" round but wasn't able to. He was eager to join its
board.

"I got to know [OnSwipe CEO] Jason Baptiste. Something
about him is very infectious, and I mean that in a very
compelling way. He's a scattered, beautifully engaged kind of
guy," says Keane.

Aside from being drawn to Baptiste, Keane says OnSwipe has
billion-dollar business potential. Not only does OnSwipe
provide a great service to publishers, but it also creates a
beautiful tablet solution for advertisers. OnSwipe helps
publishers avoid paying to develop an app and instead turns their
sites into an HTML-5 compatible, tablet-friendly version.

For advertisers, OnSwipe is gathering unique tablet data and
offering immersive tablet solutions. Tablets only make up 3% of
total web views now, but Keane is betting that percentage will
grow. He thinks OnSwipe will be the company that helps
advertisers and publishers alike monetize that inventory. Right
now, OnSwipe is collecting information including what time of day
people use the devices and how they like to hold it (vertically
or horizontally).

"In my heart I'm a consumer media tech guy," says Keane.
"Web advertising is now a $50 billion business. A big reason why
I went to Google was to make advertising useful and more
relevant. A lot of the companies I associate myself with
are trying to make advertising more relevant they're creating
compelling, useful content for consumers." He says Bleacher
Report and OnSwipe are doing just that.

As for the New York tech scene, Keane can't believe how it's
grown.

"When I worked at Jupiter years ago, we would write about a lot
of intriguing tech companies in Seattle and the Bay Area," says
Keane. "It's just amazing to see Tumblr and Etsy and Foursquare building mass scale consumer
companies here."